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Designing a home office that fits your lifeBy Neal Zimmerman
Not long ago, home offices were comparatively light-duty spaces commonly called “studies.” They may have been small rooms, libraries or dens with a desk for paying bills or writing letters and perhaps an easy chair for reading. Some even had a portable typewriter—remember those? —in a nearby closet.
 But in the new millennium, we’ve jumped headfirst into a new kind of workplace within the home. Whether it is in one’s primary residence or vacation home makes little difference. What matters most is that innovative design and technological advances have led to home offices that are as well-equipped as one’s workplace office, thus creating a new level of flexibility for our highly mobile society.The home office can be designed to accommodate full-time work from home, or are used simply to catch up on e-mail. Whether you need to stay abreast of critical developments from your second home, or you merely want to manage your personal affairs, offices in the home have become commonplace for millions of Americans.
Thanks to advancements in home-office technology, designers can now focus less on work spaces as simply a matter of functional equipment, and more on overall functionality, comfort and aesthetics.
As with everything linked to swiftly developing technology, standards of sound design practice in home offices have only recently emerged, and with each passing year, these designs become more sophisticated. Needless to say, this level of sophistication necessitates careful, strategic thought and much advance planning.
A Conceptual Approach to
Designing a Home Office Regardless of your personal work requirements or available space, home office designers have learned that good home offices share three basic features:
Help balance home and work
Achieving a balance between personal affairs and business affairs while working at home is critical. To strike this balance successfully, separations between the two are important. In some cases, these boundaries may be physical, but in others, it may simply require a disciplined and intentional approach to keeping the two worlds as separate as is practical. This is for the convenience of family members and visitors and for your own psychological well-being.
Well-organized
Working at home not only necessitates the blending of work and home life but also demands a high level of organization. An organized workplace is the backbone of efficiency, which leaves more time for personal activities, a just reward for anyone who works from home.
Have personal spirit
When you work in a traditional office, workplace standards and corporate culture may limit the personalization of your own space. But when you work at home, the choices are all yours, not only in function but also in style. Your workplace architect or designer should work with you to create an environment that you feel good about, one that reflects who you are. It’s a place where you develop and communicate your best ideas. You should not only be comfortable, but you should enjoy being there.
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